Son House: The Rochester Connection & More Pt. II

Son House and the men who rediscovered him: Nick Perls, Dick Waterman and Phil Spiro

 A couple of months back we took a comprehensive look at the life and time of Son House with an emphasis on his years in Rochester, NY. After that piece was posted, and in response to a couple of recent Son House features on our radio program some new information has come to light which we present here.

 One of the most interesting things that came to light was some previously unreleased Son House recordings and photos that came into my possession. These stem from an informal 1974 recording of House in his home on Grieg Street conducted by Mike Mumford and photographer Warren Zuelke. The over two hours of reel to reel tapes and photos were promptly stored away and haven't been seen by anyone since. Unfortunately at this point House was on a downward spiral and by 1975 had stopped recording. House's deterioration is evident on these tapes so don't expect these recordings to ever become commercially available. Still the tapes reveal some interesting comments about House's views on the blues and his days running with blues legends like Charlie Patton and Willie Brown. While House's playing is erratic there's still some fire left as the above sound clip shows. In addition the two dozen photos were quite good as you can judge from the sample included here.

Son House, 1974, Rochester, photos by Warren Zuelke

 It's really not surprising to find unreleased Son House recordings as his rediscovery in the 60's was a huge event and the technology was easily available to make surreptitious recordings. As mentioned in the last article there are a few of these recordings floating around Rochester where House lived for over thirty years and where he played in local coffeehouses and Universities. Most of these stem from the late 60's and again it's doubtful any of these will see commercial release. Perhaps more interesting is some video footage shot during this time that remains in the can to this day. One of these projects was by Reel Image, Inc. a local company that began work on a Son House documentary in March, 1974. Michael F. Rothman, who was one of those involved in the project, wrote an article in an 1976 issue of Talking Blues which makes mention of the project. The project was never completed but there was apparently video footage shot. My attempts to discover what happened to this footage have came up blank. Other video footage was shot at House's 70th birthday part which happened at the home of a Long Island fan. The status of this footage also remains unknown.

 Last month we provided a list of essential House recordings but I was altered to another recording that's worth mentioning. The record is "Son House: The Real Delta Blues" which was issued in 1974 on Blues Goose which was a sister label to Yazoo. This album was a collection of early sixties private tapes released to provide House some additional revenue in his later years. Reviewer Chris Smith wrote that "all the greatness of Son House is here - the total involvement, the powerful, yet fundamentally introspective vocals, the lyrical creativeness, the rich dialogue between voice and guitar. ...No country blues fan can be without this collection." Unfortunately this fine album has not been issued on CD but well worth seeking out for the dedicated fan.

 -Check out these related links:
Preachin' The Blues: The Son House Story
Son House: Revisited